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Health care industry

The Beach Cities Health District is gearing up to unveil plans for a long-envisioned revamp of its 11-acre campus in Redondo Beach. Next month, residents of the South Bay beach cities will get a virtual, 3D glimpse of conceptual plans to make over the Prospect Avenue campus with a senior living facility with up to 400 units and much-needed infrastructure upgrades to the district’s aging four-story medical building. A...

Health

Health insurance giant Anthem predicts Californians will pop a lot more pills next year. To make the case for a hefty premium hike in the state’s individual insurance market, Anthem Blue Cross has forecast a 30 percent jump in prescription drug costs for 2018. Such a sharp increase is nearly double the estimates of two other big insurers, and it runs counter to industry trends nationally. Prescription drug spending in the U.S. grew 6.1 percent over the 12 months ending in...

By Chad Terhune
California Healthline|on 09/24/2017

Health

A third of young California children at risk for lead poisoning are not being tested despite state and federal laws that require it, according to a new study—a problem at least partly addressed by legislation now on the governor’s desk. Researchers using data from the state Department of Public Health found that 160,000 children 1 and 2 years old who needed testing never received it. That’s a 34 percent failure rate, the study says. “Our most...

By Elizabeth Aguilera
CALmatters|on 09/23/2017

Politics

WASHINGTON >> Sen. John McCain’s opposition to the GOP’s last-ditch effort to repeal and replace the Obama health law has dealt a likely fatal blow to the legislation — and perhaps to the Republican Party’s years of promises to kill the program. It was the second time in three months the 81-year-old Arizona Republican had emerged as the destroyer of his party’s signature promise to voters. “John McCain never had any intention of...

By ERICA WERNER and ALAN FRAM
Associated Press|on 09/23/2017

Hepatitis

Public health officials declared a hepatitis A outbreak in Los Angeles County on Tuesday, saying there are now 10 people infected, two of whom are homeless and contracted the potentially fatal liver disease locally. The two newer cases can’t be traced to San Diego County, where the infectious disease has affected 421 people, mostly among those who are homeless, said Dr. Barbara Ferrer, L.A. County Public Health Director during a report to the Board of Supervisors at its weekly...

Hepatitis

LOS ANGELES — Health officials said today that Los Angeles County has a hepatitis A outbreak based on two “community-acquired” cases that cannot be traced back to San Diego County or Santa Cruz. “We are in the situation of a hepatitis A outbreak ... as of this morning,” Public Health Department Director Barbara Ferrer told the Board of Supervisors. Most cases to date have been identified in patients who are homeless or drug users, but include...

City News Service|on 09/19/2017

Health

Three years after the Affordable Care Act’s coverage expansion took effect, the number of Americans without health insurance fell to 28.1 million in 2016, down from 29 million in 2015, according to a federal report released Tuesday. The latest numbers from the U.S. Census Bureau showed the nation’s uninsured rate dropped to 8.8 percent. It had been 9.1 percent in 2015. Both the overall number of uninsured and the percentage are record lows. The uninsured rate...